Runaway Train
by Pleasance
Summary: He stood in the middle of the hallway, waiting for the right moment, letting his thoughts move like a runaway train. KaiJou.


It's amazing how easily I ended up in these situations. It seemed that everything I did managed to emphasize just how big an idiot people claimed I was. But then again, no one had ever said that Jounouchi Katsuya was one to back down from the penalty of losing a bet. At least I had my honor, if not my pride.

So, I waited for my 'victim' in the corridor that he usually took. I might not have been book smart, but I knew people. And people liked to follow set patterns in their lives. It gave them comfort and security; that as long they kept these habits up, the world would keep spinning on its axis and everything would be just peachy keen.

Take my father for instance. Up at six am with a hangover, screams at me to wake up and get him some 'god damn fucking' aspirin. He then spends the next two hours taking care of his shit and cursing at me about how if he gets another call from school about me, he will 'beat me stupider'. At eight, he goes to work at the storage facility where he does jack shit for only six hours, but clocks out after eight hours. He bullied a smaller coworker into taking care of his timecard. Did this at every job he has. Probably going to get his ass fired in a month when he supervisor figures it out or his coworker tattles.

He goes on to sit his ass at home, watching TV and drinking cheap beer, until I get home around three. His mood from then on depends on how much alcohol he has drunk. He might grunt to acknowledge my existence and mutter something about dinner and more beer. The second and much more favored outcome is that he has drunk himself into a stupor and doesn't wake up until tomorrow morning. This unfortunately only happens twice a week or less.

After I get him more beer and an early dinner, he usually ends up getting to the second outcome by six in the evening. Yup, he sleeps for twelve hours or more a day. Not healthy mind you, but it keeps him out of my hair which makes it a-okay in my book. Any kind of news about me from school, the local police, etc. that will require him to change this routine in any way will -- of course -- end up with him beating the shit out of me.

This was indirectly one of the reasons why I didn't try too hard in school. For a little while after meeting Yugi, I really did try to improve my grades. The kid just motivated you to do something good. My teachers were so thrilled that they got the principal to call my dad in for a parent-teacher meeting to see if they could continue to encourage this behavior in me. Needless to say, my dad was pissed about having to leave our little hovel for something as worthless as…well...me. Yup, I got bruises galore and a small knot at the back of my head. Why not fight back you may ask? Well, my pop used to be an amateur boxer before my mom left him. For a guy with a beer belly, he's still got some great moves. I should know.

This was what I got for being good. The same fucking thing I got when bad. When I did nothing at all and managed average grades in school, then everything was just fine. And people wondered why I was so mad about people doing stuff for me. They kept changing the status quo and fucking me over.

Oh yeah, I had a temper. One that I inherited from my father apparently. Shizuka got all the good genes, that's for sure. Which led me to this mess. I unfortunately had the poor judgment to tell my friends, specifically Anzu, about being gay. For all her talk about tolerance, she did not seem to appreciate the fact seeing that Yugi had then confessed that his Yami was bi.

Let me pause here to state a fact:

No girl likes to hear that the guy she likes enjoys taking it up the ass...not unless she has some kind of yaoi fixation.

Hiroto just nodded as if he had known all along (he didn't) before asking me if I'd done anything. Horny bastard.

Two bad things happened after my confession. First, Ryou had actually leered at me and said that he would be willing to break me in. Let me pause here to shudder. It was like having a fluffy, white bunny rabbit suddenly start humping your leg. I figured it had been his Yami talking when Ryou suddenly turned bright red and muttered something like "Bad Bakura." Then again, the kid just might have problems.

Secondly, Anzu had declared that I could not possibly gay if I had not done anything.

So what was I then? Pre-gay?

Man, I was really pissed then. It had taken me a long time to 'fess up' to myself and even longer to tell my friends. And now I had this stuck-up bitch telling me that my fucking closet didn't exist.

Let me pause again to state that my temper and my IQ were inversely proportional. The conversation that followed between Anzu and I was a true testament of my much publicized stupidity.

"You are so not gay, Jounouchi."

"I betcha I am"

"Fine, I'll take you up on that bet."

"-- what?"

"Are you not queer enough to handle it?"

"Damn you, I'm queer enough to handle anything!"

"Fine, I bet you to that you can't kiss every boy in this school."

Yugi, who should have stopped our little tiff right there, had instead demanded that Anzu make a fairer bet. Really, a guy couldn't ask for a better friend.

"Okay, Jounouchi, I want you to kiss every guy and spirit in this room in the next five minutes."

"No problem."

"I'm not finished. You have to kiss them on the lips."

"No problem. Start timing, woman."

This was where my brain had caught up to my mouth and I shared a panicky look with Hiroto, before he ran away from me screaming like a little girl. His scream had been like a gun going off in my head and I was in bet mode. Didn't matter that this was the dumbest bet of all time. I was a man defending my queer honor. I knew what I had to do.

It had taken me three minutes to run after Hiroto, tackle and pin him down, and give him a quick wet one. Dear god, that boy needed a truckload of breath mints. No wonder Shizuka wouldn't go on a second date with him.

Running back to Ryou, he had given me this freaky little smile and I realized I wasn't dealing with nice, sweet Ryou. No, his crazy-ass Yami proceeded to tackle and pin _me_ to the ground and proceeded to kiss me like he was trying to thoroughly clean my tonsils. Thirty seconds into the kiss, Ryou finally managed to wrestle control of his body and roll off me.

I didn't think the red that Ryou's ears had turned could be healthy. It was all I could see of him. He had covered his face with his hands and was moaning over and over again, "Bad Bakura". Seeing that I was a man on a mission and I had no compassion for him at this point, I whipped his hands off his face and pecked him on the lips.

As a side note, for all the humping bunny imagery that his Yami gives me, Ryou looks pretty cute when he's upset. No wonder his Yami was such an asshole to him.

I jumped to my feet and ran over to Yugi. Or rather Yami seeing that Yugi's body had grown a foot taller. At that point, Anzu had cackled that there was a minute left on the timer. Flicking her off, I looked into Yami's eyes to see if he was cool with this. Yami just smirked at me like he was challenging me to a duel.

Stupid pharaoh-boy, did he not know that I was pressed for time?

I think some of my consternation had become apparent since he grabbed me by the lapels of my jacket and proceeded to kiss me silly. Gods, he was a great kisser. He released me almost reluctantly, licked my lips, and commenting on how chapped they were before letting Yugi take over. By the way, the look on Anzu's face when this happened was my silver lining through the whole mess.

Now I found that kissing Yugi was a different matter entirely. What had prompted me to confess my sexuality to everyone had been Yugi's thoughts about his own sexuality. We had been teasing Yugi about getting a date for the winter prom. Telling him that he must have had the pick of the litter, now that he was the Duelist Kingdom champion.

His response was that he wasn't interested in anyone. We thought he was kidding. I mean everyone has to have some kind of love interest, right? His defense: "I guess my hormones haven't kicked in yet. I just don't see people that way. At least not yet."

When I realized that Yugi hadn't really grown up as much as the rest of us, I had felt weird about kissing him. Like I was some kind of child molester or something. It felt wrong. I had twenty seconds on the clock and I spent it staring down at Yugi with an almost disgusted look on my face. Later, I realized that I must have hurt his feelings because while he did pat my hand saying that it was okay, he hadn't stuck around to hear what my punishment for losing the bet would be.

I think that Anzu had been a little demoralized by seeing Yami kiss me like that, but it hadn't stopped her from crowing in my face that I was not as gay as I thought I was. Again, I lost my temper and called her a dumb bitch for not noticing that I had just kissed two guys and two spirits right in front of her.

Note to self: Do not call someone a dumb bitch when you have just lost a bet to them.

Furious, and I'm sure wanting to see me dead, her next words had been, "Jounouchi Katsuya, your penalty for losing this bet is to declare your love to Kaiba Seto and then kiss _him_ on the lips." Imaginative, wasn't she? Really, I was beginning to think that maybe she was a yaoi fangirl. Else, she just wanted to see Kaiba beat me up.

So here I was in the hallway, letting my thoughts go like a runaway train, waiting for Kaiba to show up. Lucky me, there he was. Glancing behind him, I saw the gang minus Yugi watching me. It was hard to tell from the smiles on their faces whether they were rooting for me or against me. Anzu I know for sure was against me.

I walked up to Kaiba and watched him eye me warily. I'm guessing he was curious about what I was doing because he didn't say anything. I continued to walk forward until there was just barely an inch of space between us. He held his ground and didn't move. Just stared down at me with those dark blue eyes. I didn't know that he had specks of light gray in his eyes. They almost look silvery. He then opened his mouth to most likely insult me, but I had to get through this before I lost my temper and made the situation worse.

"I love you, Kaiba Seto." Why my voice came out all husky and breathless, I don't know. I guess I was a better actor than I thought.

Then I kissed him. And of course, ran for my life.

The kiss was chastely done, mind you. I had no desire to find out what he had had for lunch. I might have been gay, but Kaiba Seto was the last man I would want to have any sort of relationship with. Once, maybe, I would have wanted a guy like him. Rich, handsome, and smart with cool toys. Now that I knew him, if having all those things meant you had to be an asshole like Otogi and him, then I didn't want to have any part of it. Dear god, the man's personality was like nails down a chalk board. So annoying that you wanted to hurt him. The dog thing was just too much for me to handle as well. No, I was not protesting too much.

I am glad that I did it in that order. My declaration stunned him long enough to get my smooch in. I had a feeling that if I had kissed him first, he would have decked me and I would have never been able to finish my penalty.

As I slowed down three blocks away from the school and my brain finally freed itself from its fight or rather flight reflex, I realized that...

…he had kissed me back.


End file.
